Today's tele-care monitoring devices are often prohibitively expensive and/or limited in-functionality without the ability to interface with one another in a complementary fashion. For example, a tele-care monitoring device is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 6,402,691, entitled In-Home Patient Monitoring System, and issued to Peddicord et al. This device is capable of collecting patient physiological data in the form of a blood pressure reading, temperature reading, pulse oximeter reading, and/or weight reading, and communicating the data to a clinician over a communications network. This device, however, does not have the ability to implement health care monitoring equipment to collect and transmit large amounts of audio data in digital form, such as with an electrocardiograph and/or stethoscope, nor does it provide teleconferencing capability.
Some commercially available stethoscopes and electrocardiographs are capable of interfacing with a patient's personal computer (PC) and/or handheld device via an audio input and complementary software, thereby creating a wave file recording user physiological data. Examples of such equipment include the Meditron Sensor-Based Stethoscope System and the IQMark Digital ECG.
A maker of tele-care monitoring systems and devices is presented with competing needs of less critical patients who do not require collection and telecommunication of digital audio data, and more critical patients who require collection and telecommunication of both digital readings and digital audio data. For example, requiring acquisition of a PC or monitoring device capable of collecting and communicating audio data presents increased expense for less critical patients and/or their care-givers. Also, requiring purchase of a dedicated device for digital readings presents an inconvenience for the more critical patients and/or caregivers based on the need to undergo separate data collection and communication procedures between devices. Further, caregivers of patients and/or patients transitioning from less critical status to more critical status may be faced with the need to either purchase an entirely new device capable of collecting and communicating digital readings and digital audio data, or undergo separate collection/communication procedures with separate devices.
The need remains for a tele-care monitoring device that is designed to be inexpensive for less critical patients, and is expandable for more critical patients without requiring purchase of a separate device having functionality that is redundant with functionality of a device already owned. The need further remains for a monitoring device that is capable of expanding by integrating with a PC already owned by a patient or caregiver, so that less additional expense is incurred. Finally, the need remains for an inexpensive monitoring device that is capable of integrating with a PC to provide teleconferencing capability, thereby permitting patient monitoring procedures to be conducted under long-distance supervision of a clinician. The present invention fulfills the aforementioned needs.